


Someone lost to both of us

by mayoho



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post The Vile Village, Tea, referenced canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: Lemony enters a home unbidden, makes some tea, and answers a question posed by an inaccurate newspaper article.
Relationships: Lemony Snicket & Jerome Squalor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	Someone lost to both of us

They nearly ran into each other in the hall. Jerome’s face turned white as the proverbial sheet, his mouth working soundlessly. He looked a bit like a fish.

Lemony watched him for a long moment. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

“I—it’s just that I didn’t notice you come in.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

The silence hung stiff and awkward, laden with unspoken words, between them.

“May I offer you some tea?”

“Lemony... I don’t want to argue with you, but this is my home.”

Ignoring Jerome, Lemony made his way to the second nearest kitchen, not wanting to spend anymore time in the room that had turned into a waiting room for the Baudelaire orphans. He had carefully examined and rendered a quick sketch of the oven door that would no longer shut properly since Violet had used the oven to invent improvised welding torches. There was nothing else to find there. The space had become a waiting room for him too. He remained silent as he boiled water to prepare the tea. An emerald green enameled kettle had been left out on the stove top and the fine china tea set, sans sugar bowl, patterned with elegant teal scrolls to match the wallpaper, was nestled in the cabinet above the sink with a large tin of his preferred assam tea. Just as they had always been. This had, after all, been his home once. As much as anywhere had been. 

Jerome picked at imagined lint and fiddled with the opalescent cufflinks that secured his french cuffs. Lemony fussed with the tea set, warming the pot with hot water from the tap, drying it with a checked teal tea towel, and settling it into a teal hand-crocheted tea cozy before carefully spooning in the requisite amount of tea leaves.

The kettle was making the telltale rattling sound that warned of an impending whistle when Jerome broke the silence. “Is it true?”

Lemony was silent until the whistle of the tea kettle startled him out of his thoughts. He clicked off the burner. He did not need to ask what Jerome meant, but he considered asking anyway simply to delay his answer. 

“Yes,” he said as he poured the boiling water into the teapot.

Jerome slumped against the nearby wall. Lemony noted the time to ensure the tea steeped for the proper five minutes. Tea should be bitter as wormwood and sharp as a double edged sword, but there were limits. He moved each piece of the tea set—the teapot in its cozy, the tea strainer, two saucers, two cups, the creamer filled only a quarter way with milk as not to be too wasteful in the case of its inevitable disuse—to the nearby table and settled in to wait. This room, too, had become a waiting room. Though five minutes was not such a long time to two men so consumed by grief to wait. The echoing tick of the clock on the wall was barely audible over the staticy hum of Lemony’s thoughts.

Finally, he poured out the tea, a careful finger holding the lid of the teapot in place. Jerome took a sip of his tea and frowned but made no move to add anything else to his cup. He was aware of the Snicket’s family custom (though unaware of its larger significance) and would keep it out of respect for the dead.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jerome said softly, not meeting Lemony’s eyes, as he put his cup back down on the saucer.

“May his memory be a blessing,” Lemony replied, to which Jerome nodded briefly.

“I made a mistake, I should have kept the children here.”

Lemony didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. There was no way of knowing if a similarly inaccurate headline with a devastatingly and irrefutably accurate photo would not have been printed in the Daily Punctilio regardless of Jerome’s actions. That the place and exact circumstances would indisputably be a bit different was of no consequence. 

“Beatrice would be disappointed in me.”

“No,” Lemony made himself say, though he didn’t really mean it. But it wasn’t quite a lie. Beatrice likely wouldn’t have expected any better from Jerome. Not with Esme in the picture.

“You must be—” Lemony looked at Jerome and Jerome stopped talking abruptly. They finished their tea in silence. Then Lemony stood to leave.

“I saw your books, just recently, right before I...” Jerome toyed with the handle of the teacup rather than looking at Lemony. The cup made an unpleasant scraping sound against the saucer. “Is that what she would have wanted?”

“She would have, they both would have, agreed it is what needs to be done.”

“Perhaps I could help.” Jerome caught the angry furrow of Lemony’s eyebrows and amended, “I would come at it on my own, from my own direction.”

“Perhaps,” Lemony replied, forcing the words past a sudden lump in his throat. He should say no. This is not what Jacques would have wanted. But he twisted his mouth into something approximating an encouraging smile nonetheless. He needed to think of the living. 

“It’s the least I can do. I want to help. Make up for at least some of my failures. You can stay, for a few days, if you like. Even if you don’t want to talk to me again. The penthouse is big enough, I’m sure you could manage that.”

Lemony nodded. He returned to the sitting room to collect his portable typewriter and suitcase, surprising himself by not escaping through the window. He sifted through a stretch of memory—the pleasant kind that ached to relive under unpleasant circumstances—to ensure he selected a bedroom with no personal significance and laid down on top of the precisely tucked coverlet on the narrow bed even though there was work to be done. He stared at the ceiling for a long time. He did not cry, though he wanted to do so, desperately.

**Author's Note:**

> Everything in this fandom relies on layers of head canon and I love it. 
> 
> Assuming the multiple edition publication theory, I think it's reasonable to assume that Lemony would be researching the Ersatz Elevator immediately after the events of the Vile Village, and might run into Jerome before he starts researching Odiously Lusting After Fortunes. 
> 
> It seems like there is a lot of tea drinking on my ASOUE fic. I did this when I was writing one of the other fics as well; there is this moment where I go, "Mayo, it takes longer than that to boil water. You do this on a daily basis and know that is not timed right" and then end up just leaving it. Physics is a lie in the Snicket!verse anyway. I had to do some etiquette research as I wasn't sure what the thing you put the milk in is called. I own one. I even use it fairly regularly. It's weird that English is my native language and there are some common things I've never actually used words for.


End file.
